Sister Cities International had decided to bring back an old tradition of opening its annual conference with a parade of flags. But instead of national flags for the countries of partner cities, the parade would feature municipal flags.

"We are Sister Cities International, so we decided to do a parade of city flags," said Tim Quigley, president of the San Jose-Dublin sister city group and vice chairman of Sister Cities International.

The problem for Boulder, a proud sister to seven other cities and a regular participant in the international conference, is that it does not have a city flag.

In June, the Daily Camera reported on the dilemma. The Boulder City Council had authorized the creation of a flag for the limited purpose of using at Sister City events, not to serve as the official flag of the city, but there was no time to get a flag designed, approved and manufactured.

The Camera also learned from its archives that there had been a privately organized contest to create a city flag back in 1987, but the winning design — green and white with the Flatirons in a circle — was never formally adopted.

City Council members at the time were not interested in an official city flag.

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In 2014, no one who was on the City Council back then seemed to even remember the flag design or the contest.

Norris Hermsmeyer, chairman of the Boulder Sister Cities Committee, sent the article to the conference hosts in San Jose, where, Quigley said, an intern named Sachin Radhakrishnan was taken with the story and decided to recreate the flag.

He taught himself to use Adobe Illustrator and got some help with the color composition from an Irish entrepreneur who worked in an incubator that is part of the San Jose-Dublin sister city relationship, Quigley said.

The 1987 contest-winning flag. (Daily Camera / File Photo)

By the time the design was finished, it was 10 days to the conference start date. No U.S. flag maker could produce the flag in less than two or three weeks.

Radhakrishnan eventually found a Turkish company that promised it could make and ship the flag in time for the conference. But when he tried to follow up a few days later, the shop was closed for Ramadan. For four days, no one answered the phone.

On the Monday of the week the conference started, he talked to a company representative in Istanbul. The flag had been made and shipped the day before Ramadan. It was in France, on its way to the U.S. The flag arrived July 30, with the parade scheduled for Aug. 1.

Boulder Deputy City Clerk Alisa Darrow, the staff liaison to the Sister Cities Committee and a former high school color guard, carried the flag at the front of the parade.

At a meeting of the city's Sister City Committee on Thursday, Hermsmeyer told the story and showed off what is technically considered a "banner," as the flag does not have any official standing as a symbol of Boulder.

Hermsmeyer said he hadn't expected that Boulder would walk in the parade at all. The flag was a complete surprise.

"I think it's gorgeous," he said.

Hermsmeyer said he would turn over the flag to the City Council members who work on Sister City issues and let them do with it what they will.

Some committee members said they would like to see it displayed somewhere, perhaps in the Sister Cities Plaza outside the Boulder Municipal Building. Hermsmeyer said it is up to the city.

Quigley said he hopes Boulder takes this opportunity.

"If this doesn't get your council to make this the flag, I don't know what will," he said.

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